Table of Contents

Preface; Why I Wrote This Book; Objectives of This Book; What's New in the Second Edition?; Which Platform and Version?; Structure of This Book; Obtaining the Scripts and Sample Data; What About Those Names?; Conventions Used in This Book; Using Code Examples; Comments and Questions; Acknowledgments from the First Edition; Second Edition Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: Introduction to SQL*Plus; 1.1 What Is SQL*Plus?; 1.2 History of SQL*Plus; 1.3 Why Master SQL*Plus?; 1.4 Creating and Loading the Sample Tables; Chapter 2: Command-Line SQL*Plus; 2.1 Starting Command-Line SQL*Plus; 2.2 Starting Windows SQL*Plus; 2.3 Some Basic SQL*Plus Commands; 2.4 Running SQL Queries; 2.5 Working with PL/SQL; 2.6 The SQL Buffer; 2.7 Line Editing; 2.8 Executing the Statement in the Buffer; 2.9 Saving and Retrieving the Buffer; 2.10 The EDIT Command; 2.11 Executing a Script; 2.12 The Working Directory; Chapter 3: Browser-Based SQL*Plus; 3.1 Starting iSQL*Plus; 3.2 Executing SQL*Plus Commands; 3.3 Running SQL Queries; 3.4 Working with PL/SQL; 3.5 Executing Scripts; 3.6 iSQL*Plus Command History; Chapter 4: A Lightning SQL Tutorial; 4.1 Data Manipulation Statements; 4.2 Transactions; 4.3 The Concept of Null; 4.4 Table Joins; 4.5 Sorting Query Results; 4.6 Grouping and Summarizing; 4.7 Subqueries; 4.8 Unions; 4.9 To Learn More; Chapter 5: Generating Reports with SQL*Plus; 5.1 Following a Methodology; 5.2 Saving Your Work; 5.3 Designing a Simple Report; 5.4 Master/Detail Reports; Chapter 6: Creating HTML Reports; 6.1 Getting the Data into an HTML Table; 6.2 Generating the Entire Page; 6.3 Another Approach to Headers; 6.4 Master/Detail Reports in HTML; Chapter 7: Advanced Reports; 7.1 Totals and Subtotals; 7.2 Getting the Current Date into a Header; 7.3 Report Headers and Footers; 7.4 Formatting Object Columns; 7.5 Summary Reports; 7.6 Taking Advantage of Unions; Chapter 8: Writing SQL*Plus Scripts; 8.1 Why Write Scripts?; 8.2 Using Substitution Variables; 8.3 Prompting for Values; 8.4 Cleaning Up the Display; 8.5 Executing a Script; 8.6 Controlling Variable Substitution; 8.7 Commenting Your Scripts; 8.8 Resetting Your SQL*Plus Environment; 8.9 Scripting Issues with iSQL*Plus; Chapter 9: Extracting and Loading Data; 9.1 Types of Output Files; 9.2 Limitations of SQL*Plus; 9.3 Extracting the Data; 9.4 An Excel-Specific HTML Hack; 9.5 Reloading the Data; Chapter 10: Exploring Your Database; 10.1 The DESCRIBE Command; 10.2 Oracle's Data Dictionary Views; 10.3 Tables; 10.4 Table Constraints; 10.5 Indexes; 10.6 Triggers; 10.7 Synonyms; 10.8 Table Security; 10.9 Scripting the Data Dictionary; 10.10 Using SQL to Write SQL; 10.11 The Master Key; Chapter 11: Advanced Scripting; 11.1 Bind Variables; 11.2 Branching in SQL*Plus; 11.3 Looping in SQL*Plus; 11.4 Validating and Parsing User Input; 11.5 Error Handling; 11.6 Returning Values to Unix; Chapter 12: Tuning and Timing; 12.1 Using SQL*Plus Timers; 12.2 Using EXPLAIN PLAN; 12.3 Using AUTOTRACE; 12.4 Improving on EXPLAIN PLAN Results; 12.5 Where to Find More Tuning Information; Chapter 13: The Product User Profile; 13.1 What Is the Product User Profile?; 13.2 Using the Product User Profile; Chapter 14: Customizing Your SQL*Plus Environment; 14.1 SQL*Plus Settings You Can Control; 14.2 The Site and User Profiles; 14.3 Environment Variables That Affect SQL*Plus; 14.4 Windows GUI SQL*Plus; 14.5 iSQL*Plus User Preferences; Appendix A: SQL*Plus Command Reference; A.1 The Command to Invoke SQL*Plus; A.2 Commands You Can Issue Within SQL*Plus; Appendix B: SQL*Plus Format Elements; B.1 Formatting Numbers; B.2 Formatting Character Strings; B.3 Formatting Dates; Colophon;